Kidou Lessons
by Silentwater
Summary: Kidou was just not Ichigo's forte. (Un)fortunately for him, he has a petite-sized mentor who refuses to give up on him. Ichiruki.


**Kidou Lessons**

**Summary:** Kidou was just not Ichigo's forte. (Un)fortunately for him, he has a petite-sized mentor who refuses to give up on him. Ichiruki.

**Edit** A/n: Thank you **Izzy** for pointing out a logistical mistake. I really appreciate it. :)

* * *

"Why do I need to learn kidou?" Ichigo yawns, as he rubs a sleepy eye awake with the back of his hand.

It was 5:00 AM on a Sunday morning and he was already up thanks to a certain _somebody _(*cough cough* Rukia *cough cough*) who thought that it was a good idea to wake him up when the sun was barely peeking through the horizon.

"The early bird catches the worm," she had touted proudly before she stuffed a slice of toast into his mouth and dragged him out the door by the collar of his t-shirt. So now here he was, sitting in the middle of Urahara's underground training grounds with his physical body locked up in Urahara's sketchy storage room, while his shinigami-self was waiting for the petite shinigami to give him a decent response.

"Yamamoto-soutaichou thinks that teaching you kidou will benefit you in the long-run. Hopefully, you will gain enough mastery to control and manipulate your reiryoku better," she replies, as she rolls out a white-board from behind a large rock. Ichigo watches with curious eyes as she pulls out her trusty black marker and proceeds to scribble her name on the board.

What happens next makes Ichigo turn stark-white.

"Hello class! I am Kuchiki-sensei and I will be teaching you the art of kidou!" the petite shinigami announces cheerfully, taking a gracious bow. "It is my first time teaching so please...let's work together to make this learning experience a wonderful one! I look forward to learning with you!"

"..."

Ichigo's eye twitches, feeling disturbed by the saccharine-sweet smile that graced her lips. Even more so by the sparkly, bubbly aura she was somehow exuding.

"You're kidding me! Of all people, he asked **you **to teach me?" he wonders out loud. Unfortunately, his tone of sheer disbelief earns him a punch to the shoulder from his tiny sensei.

"Oww..."

"Is it so hard to believe?" she fumes, folding her arms across her chest in a huff as he rubs the sore spot on his arm."I'll have you know, I was at the top of my class in kidou at Shino Academy! I am more than capable of teaching you the demon arts."

Her citrus-haired pupil simply rolls his eyes at her admonishment.

"I wasn't doubting your abilities! I just...never mind! You didn't have to hit me!" he scowls. For some reason, a light blush was beginning to stain his cheeks, but Rukia merely dismisses it as him being weird.

"Sorry, but I cannot have my student thinking that I'm inadequate," she huffs.

"I never said-"

"Enough! Let's not waste any more time and start!"

With that said, she throws her arm out towards him and reveals a small ball of light hovering over her palm.

"Shall we start with the basics?" she grins optimistically, but Ichigo can not help but respond with a deep-seated frown. Knowing his history with kidou, this was not going to be fun. And in no time at all, he was certain that the smile on her face would surely be replaced with a look of pure frustration, but for now he didn't want to disappoint her by not even trying.

He sighs.

"All right. Let's do this."

_+_+_+_+_+_+2 Hours Later+_+_+_+_+_+_

Sweat drips from the corner of his brow and slides all the way down the curve of his neck as he focuses all of his energy into his hands. Slowly but surely a small ball of reiryoku begins to take shape in between his palms, and for a moment, delight and pride dances in Rukia's eyes. But, then, he feels it - his reiatsu expanding and fluctuating violently in all directions. With each wave of reiatsu that goes out of control, Ichigo can feel his sweat turn cold, and he instantly makes the effort to stop the flow of his reiatsu. To his teacher's dismay, the small ball of white-blue light of reiryoku disappears.

"Why did you stop?" Rukia cocks a raised eyebrow at him as Ichigo slumps himself down on the ground in a cross-legged sitting position.

He frowns.

"It was getting dangerous."

He looks at his hands and sees that there are cuts all over them - a sign of physical damage done by his own spiritual power - but that wasn't why he halted his training. He takes a moment to glance at the petite shinigami, and fear instantly strikes him as he imagines the worst case scenario: accidentally hurting her in the process of his lesson.

"Well, don't just give up right away, you fool. You can learn how to regain control. "She interrupts his thoughts and bends over to look him in the eye. Her intense motivated gaze, plus the fact that her face is so close to his, nearly sends Ichigo falling backwards even though he's already sitting down.

"Try again, Ichigo," she half-encourages and half-berates him. She ruffles his orange hair good-naturedly with her small delicate hands and then smiles at him, making Ichigo feel even more frustrated than before.

It takes almost every fiber of Ichigo's willpower to not scowl and walk away at that very moment because, simply put, he doesn't want to continue. Rukia didn't know it but he had tried once before to practice kidou on his own, and he wound up blowing up half of Urahara's underground training room to dust. It was only fortunate that the room was surrounded by a barrier and that he was the only one in the room at the time, so no one but him had gotten hurt by the incident. Nevertheless, the injuries he sustained from the explosion were enough to make Ichigo swear off of practicing the demon arts for a while or ever again really.

And now that Rukia's here with him, he feels even more adamant about not proceeding with his lesson. When it comes to his nakama, he would do anything within his power to protect them and right now...he needs to protect his most precious nakama from the danger posed by his kidou training. If only it was so easy to turn down her request to try again. He really didn't have the heart to deny her, especially since she was putting so much effort into teaching him.

He admits defeat.

"All right. One more time...just _one _more time."

Closing his eyes, he begins once again to concentrate all of his energy into the palm of hands. It takes a few seconds but a warm white-blue light inevitably begins to spark and lace around his fingers before it settles into an oscillating mass between his palms.

_'Okay...so it's not too bad this time.'_ He thinks as he channels his reiryoku into a whirling mass of energy.

"Excellent," he can hear Rukia praise, "Now try to even out the distribution of your spiritual energy. You're exuding it in spurts. You've got to let it flow fluidly, like this."

Kneeling before him, she allows her hands to hover over his larger ones and emits her own reiryoku over him to guide him in stabilizing the physical form of his raw energy. Before he knows it, all of the turbulence that was previously present in his sphere of spiritual energy is gone. Ichigo opens his eyes, and for the first time all morning, his nerves feel calm.

"Can you feel it...how steady and uniform the flow of your reiatsu is now?" Rukia's indigo eyes flickers up to meet his for an answer, and Ichigo can only nod obediently in agreement.

"Good. Then I'm going to slowly release my influence over your reiryoku." She pulls away slightly to demonstrate her point, and that nearly sends the citrus-haired teen into a panic. He realizes soon enough that her reiatsu is still flowing strongly in unison with his, and that gives him relief until she says...

"Once I do that, try to keep it under control by yourself, okay?"

_'Damn...'_

In that instance, hesitation and apprehension flickers in his eyes, and even though he is trying his best to hide it, it doesn't go unnoticed by his mentor. Before he knows it, there is an unsightly frown marring her pretty face and Ichigo cannot help but feel as though he had disappointed her by being so unenthusiastic.

"You fool...," she utters, making Ichigo feel more and more guilty for unintentionally undermining her efforts to teach him. He almost feels it necessary to apologize, but then she does something quite unthinkable:

BAM!

Right on the top of his head, she freaking head-butts him!

"Rukia! What the hell?!" He yelps, despite the fact that the assault on his skull doesn't even really hurt all that much. His main concern was the shrunken sphere of spiritual energy that was being held tightly within his grasp, and so he gestures at it. "I could have lost control of this thing and the whole place could have exploded!" He berates her, but continues no further when he hears her mutter something about him under her breath.

"Wha-what?" He stutters in attempt of confirming that he was hearing things correctly.

"I said that you're an idiot!" She glares at him, and he has half a mind to glare right back at her. She assaults him when he's holding a dangerous object and she's calling him an idiot?

Infuriated, he scowls at the petite shinigami and then through gritted teeth, he growls, "Why am I an idiot, _sensei_?"

"Because you're doing things half-heartedly!" She clearly points out before continuing her spiel. "What are you scared of, Ichigo? That you will fail? That you might hurt me?" She pauses for a moment to watch the expression on Ichigo's face slowly turn into one of disbelief, as he briefly wonders how she is always able to read his feelings. Pleased by his reaction, she proceeds and her voice crescendos into a more motivating tone of speech.

"If you fail, then get back up and try again until you succeed. If you're scared that you might hurt me, don't be! I can protect myself! You're doing just fine as beginner, so whatever reservations or fears you may have about performing kidou...cast them aside!" She makes a throwing-down motion with her arms. "Because whether you realize it or not, you're already pretty capable of manipulating your reiatsu on your own."

With that said, she points at the ball of reiryoku in his hands and it was only then that Ichigo suddenly realizes that Rukia had withdrawn all of her spiritual energy from his.

His eyes widen in surprise.

"Rukia...you...when?" He sputters, but all she does is smirk.

"See, you can do it," is all she says, but it's enough to restore all of the confidence that he had lost earlier on.

"Thank you, Rukia."

'..._for having so much faith in me,_' he thinks, keeping the last part to himself since he felt a little self-conscious about saying something so mushy out loud, especially to Rukia.

'_Feh. It would be just like her to blush and call me weird if I said anything too sappy to her,_' he thinks, letting his thoughts wander for a bit. Unfortunately for him...for the brief moment that he became too unfocused on the materialized ball of energy, it began to spin and grow wildly into something that was seven times its original size.

"Ichigo!" Rukia suddenly shouts, snapping him out of his daze.

"Eh?" He looks down at the sphere of reiryoku in surprise and a single bead of sweat begins to trail down his temple.

'_Oh crap!'_

He curses, trying his best to extinguish the ball of reiatsu, but to no avail. It was too late! The orb of energy had already gained a steady state of existence. Glowing ever more blindingly white, Ichigo was sure that in no time, it was going to explode.

Without a second thought in mind, he throws the energy ball away from himself, and then grabs Rukia behind a boulder, holding her closely to himself as he prepares to shelter her from the explosion with his much larger body.

He closes his eyes shut, waiting for the worst.

'_I'm sorry, Rukia. I messed up. Just please let us make it through this okay,_' he pleads to some higher being, clutching Rukia even more closely to himself. As he does so, he feels her mumble something into his chest but he pays no mind to it when he suddenly hears the roaring sound of the explosion.

As expected, a destructive wave of heat and energy shakes the room and reduces the training ground's terrain to dust, but for some reason, Ichigo is unable feel anything. No pain, no burns, nothing.

He opens his eyes.

To his relief, they're surrounded by a transparent green shield.

"Oi, Rukia, did you make this?" He asks as he marvels at how strong the barrier is before it disappears into thin air. While everything around them was obliterated, they were perfectly safe and in one piece.

He was responded with a muffled sound and a punch to the jaw.

"Owww..." He moans, letting go of her to rub the sore spot with the palm of his hands.

He hears her gasp deeply for air and then sees that her face is beet red. She looks angry and flustered, and Ichigo cringes in anticipation for her to yell at him for making such a costly mistake, but it never comes. Instead, she yells at him for something entirely different.

"YOU FOOL! HOW LONG DO YOU THINK I CAN HOLD MY BREATH? I KEEP HITTING YOU AND YET YOU KEEP PRESSING MY FACE INTO YOUR CHEST LIKE I CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF IT!" She scolds, but that was it. Not once does she mention the fact that he nearly got them killed.

"Wait...you're not mad that lost control of my reiryoku?" he wonders in trepidation, feeling surprised because he sure as hell feels angry at himself.

After taking a few extra deep breaths, she finally regains her composure and shoots him a curious look.

"Why would I be mad about that? It happens to the best of us. Heck! Renji decimated a third of the forest near our school before he managed to get the basics of kidou," she mentions offhandedly and then continues to reassure him.

"So don't worry about it. I told you...if you fail, try again until you succeed. If you're worried about hurting me, don't be. I am more than capable in protecting both you and I from any mistakes you may make, so just give it your all when you're practicing." An encouraging smile follows at the end of her little speech, and Ichigo cannot help but feel her words put him at ease.

"Thank you." he utters out quietly to the woman sitting on his lap, and for once he lets a tender expression grace his handsome face. "I'll do better next time. I promise."

She smirks in return.

"You better! Or else I'm going to fail you!" She pretends to warn him, earning a chuckle out of him as they wait for the dust surrounding them to settle down.

Once it does, Rukia 's eyes instantly widen in shock and she suddenly averts her gaze from him.

"What is it?" Ichigo asks, worried, because he sees her holding onto her sides and her shoulders tremble as if she's about to keel over.

"Ichigo...I'm sorry." She mumbles quietly, still not looking at him and this makes him feel all the more worried that there might be something wrong with her.

He gently grips her by the shoulders and scans her entire form for any visible signs of injury, but becomes puzzled when he finds nothing too concerning.

"Rukia, what's wrong?" he asks, but she only hides her face even more behind her bangs.

"I...I couldn't protect all of you." Is all she says before she finally musters up the courage to face him. As soon as she does, he can finally see why she was trembling so much...

She was trying not to laugh! But upon seeing his face, she began to fail miserably at it and ended up snickering quite a bit as she continued to fixate a little too much on him.

Bewildered, but getting a sense of the fact that there was something wrong, Ichigo follows her line of gaze to the top of his head and he freezes as he suddenly realizes how breezy his head feels.

No...it couldn't be!

He quickly rushes over to what was left of the training ground hot spring to see his reflection in the water and what he finds is something mortifying: All of his hair was singed off! His head was as smooth as a cue ball!

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screams, tearing his eyes away from the reflection of his newly-sparkling bald head to look back at Rukia, who was struggling to stifle a giggle that was threatening to escape her lips.

"You look surprisingly good without hair, Tsururin ("Smooth and shiny")!" She chokes out. It doesn't take long before she succumbs to an all-out bout of laughter. With that, Ichigo feels his left eye twitch just ever so slightly before his temper finally reaches a boiling point.

"Rukia..." He fumes as he continues to watch her roll around on the ground in a fit of giggles and snorts. Even though he was trying his best to not glare at her, Rukia could still tell that Ichigo was not happy. After all, the angry vein pulsing out of the surface of his temple was a dead give-away. And so, in an attempt to not annoy him any further, she wipes away the tears that had formed at the corner of her eyes with the back of her sleeve and puts her laughing session to an end.

"Aww...chipper up, Ichigo! I'm sure it will grow back in time for our next lesson." She chides amiably, trying her best to cheer him up, but that only makes his eye twitch again.

Next time? He scowls inwardly. He'd rather fight a hundred menos grande than to go through a next time, but for her sake, he feigns a rather creepy "enthusiastic" grin and says "Oh yay! I can't wait."

Unfortunately for him, Rukia is not very well-versed in the art of sarcasm, because before he knows it, she's saying "That's the spirit! Let's have another lesson next week!"

_'Aw...f#%*!'_

The End.

* * *

A/N: Well this was really fun to write, and it took me less than three hours to do it too! It's been awhile since I wrote a comedy, but I definitely feel like I'm in my element when I'm writing one. I hope that you found this mildly entertaining. Please let me know what you think about it by writing a review. I am always open to any critiques.

Anyways, thank you for reading! I hope that it was worth your time.

Sincerely,  
Silentwater


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